A Banker to the World

Yesterday, over a beer with an old friend—very liberal, like I once was—the conversation drifted, as it always does, from the personal into politics.

“The only thing I agree with Trump on,” he said, “is his attitude toward China.”

“Educate me,” I replied. “I know I wouldn’t want to live under the Chinese regime, and I’m not planning to. So what kind of system they have is their business, not mine. Besides, they’re not exporting ideology—they’re exporting deals. Yet almost everyone I know, left or right, seems to hate China. What’s behind that?”

He paused. “I didn’t realize folks on the right hate China too. I can’t speak for them—I can only speak for myself.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “That’s all any of us can do.”

So he continued:

“China manipulates its currency. It wants to grab Taiwan. It’s building military bases in the South China Sea. It’s grabbing Africa. And they’re building a serious navy.”

“Okay,” I said, “but none of that explains the hatred. Currency manipulation? We do that all the time. Remember what happened when Germany and France tried to exchange their trade-earned dollars for gold? That was how Bretton Woods was supposed to work. But when they asked for gold, we cut the dollar’s link to gold overnight. That wasn’t just manipulation—it was a breaking of the rules.

As for Taiwan—our own law, courtesy of Nixon and Kissinger, recognizes it as part of China. And from Beijing’s perspective, it always was part of China, until civil war tore them apart.

Military bases? We’ve got 800 or 900 scattered across the globe. China’s building them in its own backyard—the South China Sea. If they were setting up shop off the coast of California, then sure, we’d have a problem.

And Africa? That’s not conquest—it’s competition. They’re offering better deals than we are. Why wouldn’t African nations take them? They’d be fools not to.”

“So,” I concluded, “there must be something deeper to explain the hatred.”

He thought for a moment. “Maybe it’s irrational. Simply put—China is a rival.”

That answer struck a chord. It reminded me of something else—something eerily familiar.

I’m currently reading The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson. And in it, I see a psychological parallel that’s hard to ignore.

When Jews arrived in Germany during the European Dark Ages, they quickly began outcompeting the locals. They were literate; most others weren’t. They had thousands of years of business experience, stretching back to the first humans civilization they issued from – Sumer. The locals had no such legacy—they were recently barbarians.

The rise of these newcomers bred envy. That envy turned to anger. That anger turned to violence—pogroms, expulsions, demands to cast the Jews out.

But the aristocracy—the dukes and princes—had a different idea.

They were constantly at war, and wars cost money. So they devised a solution that served both their financial needs and their people’s resentment.

First, they walled the Jews into ghettos.

Then, they charged them “protection” money to shield them from the mob.

Next, they banned them from most trades—including farming—to eliminate competition.

And finally, they made one exception: banking. Why? Because bankers could conjure money from thin air, and the aristocrats needed it—desperately.

So they channeled all the energy and enterprise of a capable people into one profession. And what happens when you do that? They get good at it. Very good.

Out of that arrangement emerged the House of Rothschild, the House of Warburg, and others—banking dynasties richer than kings.

Their wealth bred more resentment. Now the Jewish elites weren’t just rich—they were powerful. Eventually, that resentment culminated in catastrophe: the Holocaust.

Now fast forward to China.

Like the Jews, China is an ancient civilization—arguably the oldest continuous one on Earth. Like the Jews, it has always revered education. And now, after a century of decline, it’s roaring back—driven by the energy of a capable, enterprising, and exceptionally intelligent people.

And just as the Jews became bankers to the European aristocracy, China has become a banker to our government. No—a banker to the world.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the hidden source of the hatred.

I don’t judge the hatred; it is a natural feeling. But I do wonder: how will it end?